


Acts of Love

by anythingbutplatonic



Series: Olicity Hiatus Road Trip Collection [9]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, General medical themes, olicity road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver gets the flu. Felicity takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acts of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I spent the better part of a year writing this fic - I’d originally planned for this to be part of my pre-season 4 Road Trip hiatus collection, but I never finished it in time. It wasn't what I had in mind when I first conceived of it (due to the fact that it got crazy long and there was so much story I still wanted to tell, so I had to cut it short and adapt it from the original idea I had for it) but I hope you like it, now that it’s finally done.!

In all the years she’d known Oliver, she’d never known him to get sick.

In hindsight, her instincts should have told her there and then that, in the event that he _did_ get sick, it would hit him like a freight train.

Her instincts weren’t wrong.

Her first clue was the way he’d stumbled a little on their way back from a trip into the nearest town to buy groceries, and they’d had to stop for a few moments so that he could rest against a nearby lamppost, blinking slowly as if trying to clear something from his field of vision. 

He’d brushed it off as a dizzy spell due to the heat, and while it _was_ hot out, especially in the direct path of the sun, Felicity had her doubts. But she reasoned with herself that if Oliver really was unwell, he’d tell her, so she pushed it to the back of her mind and trusted that he’d be honest with her if her doubts were justified. 

Her second clue was the way he’d visibly struggled to stay awake as the day went on, even though she was well aware by now that he slept little but deeply, when he didn’t have recurring nightmares, and she’d never known him to sleep during the day unless he’d been injured in a fight or while on patrol. Even then, she had to force him to rest, knowing that he would typically keep going despite being hurt because that was what Oliver did. He kept going, kept pushing, kept moving forward, and there had been times when Felicity had been afraid that he might actually drive himself to an early death.

Fortunately, that was one thing she no longer had to worry about. 

What she hadn’t anticipated was how many _other_  things there were to worry about now that she and Oliver were in a relationship. 

_Wow. That sounds nice._

In a relationship. In a _relationship._ In _a_  relationship. _In_  a relationship. 

However she stressed the words, it felt pretty amazing to say it. Or think it, in this case, since that was what she was doing. Thinking. About how amazing it was to be in a relationship with Oliver. 

She would have turned to tell him just how amazing she thought it was that they were finally together, simply because she _could_  say those words now, only she discovered that he’d fallen asleep right there on the couch, his hand outstretched where he’d meant to reach for hers but never made it. 

Hindsight also told her that she should have taken more notice of the flush to his cheeks and the sheen of sweat on his forehead, but she was too preoccupied with figuring out how to coax him into their bed, not wanting to leave him half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, which was in no sense a comfortable way to sleep, even for a man who’d spent five years on an island in the middle of nowhere with nothing to sleep on but the hard, packed dirt beneath his feet. 

Sometimes, she was left wondering how on earth he’d done it. Survive, that is. Between the landmines and and lack of running water and the fact that it was only accessible by a plane that looked like it hadn’t been maintained since the 1940s (she shuddered at the memory of having to jump out of said plane with only a parachute and Diggle’s no-nonsense military practicality, which had been a lot less comforting than it should have been), two visits to the island of Lian Yu had, for Felicity, been two visits too many. A handful of days was nothing compared to several years. 

She woke abruptly at 3am to find Oliver shivering violently next to her, still asleep for the moment but clearly not in good health. 

She reached out to shake him gently, hoping to rouse him so that she could assess how ill he actually was. “Oliver,” she whispered. “Oliver, wake up.” 

His bare skin, where she touched it, was like putting your fingers near an open flame as a kid just to see how hot it would be - he was running a fever, and a high one at that. 

She suddenly panicked at the thought that she might need to call a doctor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d charged her cellphone, or even if she’d brought her charger with her, and what if he was really sick and they needed an ambulance? Where was the nearest hospital? How would she let Thea and the others back home know? Would they let her visit him if she wasn’t family? 

She was saved from wondering whether she could intimidate a nurse into letting her see him even if she wasn’t family and how scary she would have to be to do so when Oliver finally stirred, rolling onto his back and blinking at her with confused, fever-glassy eyes. His teeth were chattering. “Did you leave the window open again?”

“No, honey,” she said, keeping her voice low and soft. It was a marker of the seriousness of the situation that she didn’t immediately want to kick herself for letting the pet name, _honey_ , slip out just like that. They hadn’t even discussed pet names yet. Or any names other than their own. “You have a fever. You’re sick, that’s why you feel cold.” 

“I don’t get sick,” he protested, in typical Oliver-like fashion. Felicity resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Was there anything he _wasn’t_  stubborn about? 

“Yes, you are. Look at you, you’re shaking like crazy,” Felicity prodded his bare forearm, scooting closer. When she was sick as a kid, she’d always make her mom get into her bed and lie down with her, even at the risk of infecting her with whatever germs she’d contracted, because it helped her feel better.

“I’m not sick,” he repeated, which would have been more convincing had he not proceeded to have a very loud, very alarming coughing fit that sounded like the noise that very old wood made when it splintered. 

In short, not a very good noise. Or a very pleasant one. 

“Mmmhmm. I’ll believe that when you’re _not_  busy hacking up a lung.” She gently tugged on his arm. “Can you sit up for me?”

Oliver made a noise that was something between a huff and a groan, but did as she asked all the same. Felicity reached behind him to re-arrange the pillows, then helped him rest back against them. Even through the material of his shirt, she could feel how warm he was. 

She was no trained medical professional, but she knew one thing; whenever someone had a fever, the first thing you did was try to break it. 

And for someone who claimed he _wasn’t_  sick, he had yet to let go of her arm where he’d held onto it to help prop himself up. 

So clearly he was having some issues with his usual physical strength, no matter what he said out loud. 

“Oliver,” she said softly, “I’m going to get you an extra blanket, okay?” 

He mumbled something that she didn’t quite catch. In the half-light of the bedroom, she could see that his eyelids were already drooping again, his shoulders slackening as he fell back to sleep.

Good. That was good. If he rested, he’d get better faster. 

Careful not to shake the mattress too much and wake him, Felicity crept out of bed, heading for the linen closet next to the bathroom. She knew there were spare blankets in there; she’d seen them, during a once-over of the place when they’d first got the keys to this, their second destination in who knew how many. Keeping as quiet as possible, she pulled out the thickest blanket she could find and padded back to the bedroom with it bundled in her arms. 

In the open doorway, she flicked on the low-level ceiling lights, illuminating the room in patches of yellow that momentarily stung her still-sleepy eyes. Her gaze fell on Oliver, who was asleep again, slumped awkwardly against the pillows. In the light, she could see the sweat shining on his forehead and in the hollow of his throat, and the way his shoulders shook with fever. 

Seeing him like this, unwell and vulnerable, made her heart constrict painfully in her chest. She was reminded of their plane trip to Nanda Parbat the first time, to deliver Thea’s body to Ra’s. As she’d sat across from him during the flight, he’d looked less like fully-grown man than a scared little boy, desperate to save his sister. Then, as now, she had felt a strong urge to do for him what he was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to do for himself; to take care of him. 

After all, he had spent the last three years caring for her, protecting her. It was only fair, she thought, that she return the favour, now that it was just the two of them and they had all the time in the world to do such things. 

She would never, ever take any of this for granted. She wouldn’t dare. It was too precious, too much to lose. They both knew that all too well. 

Padding over to the bed, her bare feet almost soundless on the thick carpet, she unfolded the blanket and draped it over his shivering body, pausing to tuck in the edges, the way her mom used to do for her. He shifted, but didn’t wake; she pressed a quick kiss to his sweaty forehead and padded back out of the room, heading for the kitchen, where they kept emergency medical supplies.

 As quietly as possible, she gathered together some aspirin, cold and flu medicine, and a tall glass of water, as cold as she could get it. When he woke up, she would make sure he took the medicine, whether he wanted to or not. He’d had some...issues with accepting medicine in the past, claiming that he didn’t need it or that he’d simply push through whatever injury he’d sustained and worry about it later. 

She still remembered rather vividly the time she had watched him inject himself directly with an entire bottle of painkillers, correct dosage be damned, then head straight back out into the field as if it was a completely normal thing to do.

It had been, in her humble opinion, _gross_. 

And that was saying something, because in the last three years? Felicity had seen some pretty gross things. Occupational hazard of being the partner-in-crime to a vigilante, she guessed. Lots of blood and gunshots and stabbing and the like. 

That was one part of their old life that she did _not_  miss. 

Despite her current worries over Oliver’s poor health, it made her stomach swoop pleasantly to think of herself as having an _old life_  and a _new life_. An old life of scars and fighting and five different kinds of pain on any given night; a new life of lie-ins and morning sex and nights spent in front of the TV, with nothing to do except enjoy each other’s company. 

It was nice, this new life. Very, very nice. And she knew that Oliver thought so too. She’d never seen him smile so much as he had in the last couple of months. 

He was beautiful when he smiled. 

Not so much when he was feverish and sweating through the sheets, which she was reminded of when she suddenly heard a horrible hacking cough coming from the direction of the bedroom, grating against her ears like nails on a chalkboard. She winced, thankful at that moment that she wasn’t the one with the flu. If it _sounded_  that awful, she could only imagine how Oliver himself must be feeling.

A little chilly herself, she padded back to their bedroom, supplies in hand, and set them down as gently as possible on the nightstand. The dull _clunk_  of glass on wood still roused him from sleep, however, and he blinked up at her dazedly where she hovered over him, a small smile on her face.

“Make sure you take these,” she said softly, tapping her nails on the nightstand to indicate the medicine and water she’d brought. “I know you have issues with taking medication because you’re stubborn as hell, and I love that about you, but you need them. They’ll make you feel better. Okay?”

“Yes, Nurse,” he muttered, shifting under the sheets to pull the blanket up around himself where it had fallen down. He watched her through sleepy eyes, blinking slowly, and Felicity’s smile widened in spite of herself. So he still had his sense of humour, then. That was always a good sign. 

“Scoot over,” she said, lifting up the edge of the blanket. “My Mom always used to keep me company when I was sick, even when it was really bad, and it always made me feel better. Is it okay if sit with you?”

“I’m not _sick_ , Felicity,” he insisted - though, in his sleep-deprived, feverish state, her name came out more like _Flissty_  instead of _Felicity_ , and she would have thought it was rather adorable had he not been burning up like a furnace. 

“Yes, you are. Now, move over so I can take care of you like the excellent girlfriend that I am.” She nudged him with her shoulder, and after a few moments, he complied, groaning with the effort of moving just a few inches across the bed to allow her space to climb in alongside him. 

Oliver immediately gravitated towards her embrace, resting his hot, sweaty cheek on the bare skin of her shoulder. He was heavy on a good day, and she’d once marveled at how much of his body was pure muscle (muscles that she appreciated very, _very_  much), but now his large frame was a dead weight against her, as if he had bones made of lead. She could feel him shivering, he was practically shaking with it; the heat of his skin was stifling, like a hot iron, but she pushed her own discomfort to the back of her mind and concentrated on taking care of _him_.

She stroked through the short spikes of his hair, her fingers grazing his scalp oh-so-gently, a repetitive motion that she hoped would relax him enough to sleep again. It may have been early in the morning - it wasn’t even yet 4am - but she was wide awake herself, and once Oliver was asleep, she resorted to sliding out of bed and getting herself some coffee.

If she was going to be looking after her sick boyfriend, she needed the sustenance and energy that caffeine would provide. She doubted she’d be sleeping again herself, anyway, not until she knew that Oliver was okay. 

It scared her, sometimes, how much she worried about him, even right from the beginning, when they’d only been acquaintances and she didn’t know him that well. There had been an innate sense of _needing_  to know that he was safe. That he wasn’t hurt. A need to protect him, though she knew full well that he could take care of himself. She’d seen it, night after night. But she soon realized that it wasn’t just the physical kind of protection she wanted to give him. It wasn’t his body that she worried about the most, but his mind. 

It was never the man under the hood that she had cared for; it was the man who was just trying to survive. The man with a scarred body and bruised heart who simply wanted what everyone wanted, in the end; to be happy. 

It took her a long time to make him see that neither was dependent upon the other. He was just as important to her as who he was when put on the mask. She loved every side of him; the masked vigilante, the protective older brother, the loyal friend, the man who’d shown her that there was more than one way to be _some_ thing other than what she was. To be a hero. 

She wouldn’t have agreed to come away with him otherwise.

Soon enough, she heard Oliver’s breathing even out, deep and ragged around the edges; every now and then he would give a little whimper, snuffling, and then be still once more. Guilt flooded through her at the thought of actually having to leave him, even just for a few minutes. How could she? He needed her here, at his side. He’d told her as much many, many times over the years. 

This was just one more time he needed her, albeit in a very different way. 

Still, she could feel herself dozing off too, the warmth of the blankets and Oliver’s solid presence at her side making her drowsy in spite of herself, and she needed caffeine. He would be okay for the amount of time it would take her to make a cup of coffee and bring it back to bed; besides, if something happened and he woke up, she wouldn’t be very far away. 

She would always come back to him if he called. 

Carefully, she slid out from underneath him, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress. After the heat of his body, the cool air was a shock to her skin, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before heat kicked in and the whole house started to warm up. Oliver whined in his sleep, a tiny distressed noise that made her want to climb right back into bed and never leave; but alas, she had to. Wonderful caffeine was calling. 

She made her way to the kitchen, humming a nonsensical tune as she put the coffee maker to work. A large yawn put her arms above her head, and Felicity rubbed at her eyes and watched the sun start to come up over the horizon through the window over the sink.

She’d never watched the sunrise before. Not until she’d met Oliver, and joined his crusade. 

She remembered watching the sun come up over the ruins of Starling City after The Undertaking, scorching everything to red and orange, like an apocalyptic wasteland. She remembered Diggle bringing her the news about Tommy, and finding what little possessions Oliver had gone from the Foundry. 

They didn’t see each other again for five months after that, and the image of that slice of the sun burning what Malcolm Merlyn had laid waste had been prominent in her mind for the duration of that time. 

The sunrise was pretty here. The sun’s rays warmed her face where they hit the window, and when the coffee maker beeped to signal its readiness, she took a moment once she’d filled her mug to sip the scalding drink and take it all in.

She was really here. _They_  were really here. They really, really were doing this. 

Felicity had never been happier. 

She would hazard a guess that Oliver never had, either.

It was like dream - except it was all real. Every last part of it. 

“ _If you’ll come with me.”_

Felicity would never have said no. Never. She loved Oliver - she loved him so much it was like a physical ache in her bones - and the minute the offer had left his lips, right in front of all their friends, she knew what her answer was going to be. 

_There was no choice to make._

Lips curving into a smile, Felicity cradled her mug in her hands and watched the sunrise a few minutes longer, feeling more content than she had...well, since the last time they’d made love, if she was honest, which had been last night. 

What could she say?

Oliver was an _excellent_  lover.

(...and, yeah, okay, that word still sounded creepy.)

A tiny snort escaped her, and she should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. Mostly because she remembered that Oliver wasn’t there and couldn’t hear her, asleep as he was in the next room, but also because he’d never laughed or poked fun at her when she did silly things like _snorting_. 

He was nice like that.

He was nice like a lot of things, her Oliver.

Another burst of hacking coughs coming from the bedroom, followed by painful whimpers and what she thought was a half-hearted groan of her own name, sad and pleading, had her sprinting from the kitchen at breakneck speed, coffee mug still in hand and thankfully less than half-full. She may have spilled a drop or two in her haste to reach him, regardless, and more _definitely_  slopped over the side of the mug where she slammed it on the nightstand, but it was worth it to pull back the coverlet and sit on the edge of the mattress and rub Oliver’s back until the coughing stopped. 

Nobody would ever say that she, Felicity Smoak, was a bad girlfriend. 

When it was over, he slumped forward, resting his sweaty forehead in the crook of her neck. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, anchoring him in place; she could hear his wheezing breaths in her ear, the tremors in his muscles that indicated his body was trying to fight off the fever and the shivers that came with it.

“It’s okay,” she soothed, resting her cheek on the top of his head, “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Reaching behind him, she grabbed the extra blanket and unfolded it as best she could with one hand, then draped it over the both of them. They were huddled somewhat awkwardly at the edge of the bed, Oliver’s weight difficult to balance, especially when he was weakened by the flu, but she made sure that the material was wrapped securely around his shoulders and that he was at least partially covered and warm. 

Plus, her bare feet were like blocks of ice, so there was something in it for her, too.

She let her eyes drift closed, gently rocking Oliver like a child, hoping it would send him back to sleep. She hated seeing him like this, helpless and weak. And she knew it was only the flu, and that in a few days he’d be better and they’d be back to their idyllic life exploring coastal towns, and she might even be able to convince Oliver to drive them to the airport and catch the next available flight to anywhere in the world...

But she was getting ahead of herself. 

They weren’t “there” yet. 

Oliver coughed, spluttering, Felicity’s eyes flying open and her hands on his back, massaging where she hoped the tension in his chest was, and she didn’t even care that he was coughing all over her because she would rather take care of him at his worst than leave him to battle the flu alone. 

Besides, they were a team, now. They stuck together. 

Like band-aids, but sexier. 

“Sorry,” he croaked, burying his face in her neck, his cheek hot on her collarbone. He fingered the hem of her pyjama top, running the material over his fingers. Now wasn’t the time to think about his fingertips grazing the bare skin of her stomach underneath, or how he was dangerously close to the waistband of her sleep pants, the ones with the matryoshka dolls that had so amused him when he’d first seen her wear them. “F’licty, I’m cold.”

“I can’t do much about that, I’m afraid,” she replied. “The virus needs to get out of your system, so you’ll be hot _and_ cold for a while.” 

“I’d like a computer virus better,” Oliver mumbled against her skin, and Felicity laughed; a sharp burst of laughter that made Oliver groan where she jostled him, and had her murmuring her _own_  apology as she rubbed her thumb over the soft, sweat-damp hair at the nape of his neck. 

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I don’t think you’d like the supervirus I cooked up with Cooper in college. That was pretty bad.”

Oliver made a faint grunt of disagreement, then had another coughing fit. It shook the entire bed with the force of it, Felicity patting his shoulders and stroking through his short hair soothingly until it was over. 

“Time for you to get some more rest, mister,” Felicity said, unwinding his arms from around her waist. Limp and heavy, he was much easier to move than when he was healthy and able to control his body better. He whined, staying fast; he remained curled against her side, dangerously close to actually laying his head on her breasts. Not that she would have minded, but it was hardly a comfortable position for _anyone_  to be in, never mind someone who had the size and body shape of a bull and ridiculously long limbs to boot. 

With a lot of mumbled complaining and groans of pain from Oliver, she got him resting back against the pillows, his face almost as white as the sheets themselves. Sweat shone on his forehead and cheeks and nose; more sweat stuck his shirt to his chest and back. And he was still shivering all over, though the way he clenched and unclenched his fists in a rapid rhythm against the mattress told her he was trying his best to hide it. 

Ever the martyr, her Oliver.

Felicity sipped at her now-lukewarm coffee as she tucked the blankets back around him with one hand, then pushed a hand raggedly through her hair. It was tangled from sleep and sticking out like a bush around her face, though it wasn’t as frizzy as it had once been, now that she’d cut it shorter, to just below her shoulders. 

“It looks different,” Oliver had said, when she’d first cut it, tugging on the end of one blonde lock. 

She’d furrowed her brow, her nose wrinkling. “Bad different?” 

“No,” he’d said, and smiled that blinding smile she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to no matter how many times she saw it. “I like it.”

She tugged her fingers through her hair now, trying to tame it, but all she really did was make it frizzier and bushier. If she felt comfortable with leaving Oliver alone for ten minutes, she could perhaps take a shower and wash her hair with her favourite apple blossom shampoo, maybe use her coconut body wash, the one that drove Oliver crazy because he said it made her smell good enough to reach out and taste with his tongue...

But she didn’t think she _would_  feel comfortable doing that. 

She watched him for a few moments, dozing fitfully, the little furrow between his eyebrows giving away that, even in sleep, he wasn’t completely at rest while he had this horrible virus. It gave her a pang in her chest, a strange tightening of an invisible knot in the very center of it. 

The kind of pang she associated not with the stress of worrying whether Oliver would return from a vigilante-related mission, but with the simple act of loving him. 


End file.
